Ep 37 How NOT to Fall in Love in Australia

Speaker 1 00:00
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sherriff.

Speaker 1 00:15
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Dear’s family and friends, and I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 2 00:33
The air hung heavy in the courtroom. The people pressed shoulder to shoulder. They’d heard the gossip and the whispers about a family teeming with passion and hate, about a mysterious disappearance, and a pile of bones found burning in a lime pit.

Speaker 2 00:47
And now they wanted to know what really happened. But even they were not prepared for the story that came spilling out. The secrets, the lies, the confessions, and the envy. So unimaginable. And now you will hear it too.

Speaker 2 01:06
The Dead Alive on Morrison Mysteries. A true story that became a classic novel. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 01:18
Pack your body bags! We’re going on a… sleigh-cation! A sleigh-cation! These are murders and mistakes!

Speaker 4 01:26
What can you say, rise up lights, rise up lights? Kim, can you say, rise up lights?

Speaker 5 01:33
Rise up lights. Can you say it again? Rise up lights.

Speaker 4 01:37
You’re an Australian asking for razor blades.

Speaker 3 01:41
God, because that’s where all the rise up lights are.

Speaker 4 01:45
Rise up lights, that’s a callback, that’s a callback.

Speaker 3 01:51
So I keep that other part: Pack your body bags, we’re going on a sleigh-cation. These are murders and mysterious deaths that happen while you’re on vacation. Hello, Kim. Hey. Hello, Jerry. Hello. We are excited to be back. One thing I want to say is Jerry, Mr. Tolerable, is going to Burning Man.

Speaker 3 02:26
Oh, which means we’re going to be missing an episode. So we thought it would be fun if you wanted to write in any questions you might have for us. Kim and I, and Jerry if you have time before you go, can answer questions on the show. But we’d love to get questions from you, the listeners. You can ask us about anything. You can ask about Kim’s time doing social work, knitting, movie stuff for me, TV stuff for Jerry, anything personal, relationship, marriage, you name it.

Speaker 3 02:59
Parenting, Jerry would be happy to talk and give you parenting tips. I love it from a guy with no kids and cats.

Speaker 3 03:13
No, I had cats.

Speaker 4 03:14
You had cats, that’s right. Anyway, yeah, so we thought it would be fun to fill the hole in our schedule with an ask us anything type of episode.

Speaker 3 03:21
Mm-hmm. So please, you can email us if you go to slaycation.wtf and contact us. There’s a form you can fill out and send it to us. But Jerry likes to say the info email. Go ahead.

Speaker 4 03:37
What is it exactly?

Speaker 4 03:45
Info at blah blah blah. Probably. But just go to slaycation.wtf and click contact.

Speaker 3 03:51
You can find us on Facebook. We have our Slaycators Only group. We have our Slaycation Facebook page. You can direct message us on Facebook Messenger. Anyway, ask your stuff.

Speaker 3 04:09
Jerry, Burning Man, has there ever been any Burning Man murders?

Speaker 4 04:13
Not that I’m aware of. I’ve never really looked into it, but I’ve never heard of any.

Speaker 3 04:22
Well, I have looked into it. No, there’s been no Burning Man murders.

Speaker 4 04:25
Oh man, why are you doing this? Why you gotta slay on my cake?

Speaker 3 04:30
No, no. There have not been murders. There have been deaths, for sure. But it’s like, a woman hit by a bus, a 41-year-old man who died in 2017, jumping into a 40-foot bonfire during the Manburn event.

Speaker 3 04:37
Yeah, that was a horrible situation.

Speaker 4 04:38
You weren’t there for that.

Speaker 3 04:40
No, but since then, they have put things in place to prevent that from happening.

Speaker 4 04:45
Thank God they had to build a thing around it to keep people from jumping into a bonfire.

Speaker 4 04:50
You wouldn’t think people would, but you know.

Speaker 5 04:53
Yeah, you need that precaution. I mean, it’s like when you call to make an appointment or you call the doctor’s office and they say, “If you are having a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911.”

Speaker 4 05:06
Or do not take Sky Rizzy if you’re allergic to Sky Rizzy. OK.

Speaker 3 05:11
How am I going to find that out? This one was more recent. September 1st, 2023. Leon Reis, 32, was found unresponsive on the festival grounds and was pronounced dead after medical personnel administered CPR.

Speaker 3 05:24
Could have been you.

Speaker 4 05:27
I’ve not been.

Speaker 4 05:33
I’m just trained in first aid until they arrive.

Speaker 3 05:37
The death was ruled an accident caused by acute cocaine toxicity, ethanol toxicity, and methylenedioxide, methamphetamines, ecstasy, MDMA, or moly toxicity. The coroner said a drug overdose was likely a factor in Risa’s death, not the weather.

Speaker 4 05:59
No, because it was hot, or wet. Yeah, look, the thing is, it is as much as people think, it’s just a crazy place. I mean, there’s a lot of amazing things going on at Burning Man, but it is a testament to the fact that people who go there do know kind of how to keep their shit together, that more of that doesn’t happen.

Speaker 4 06:17
So you’ve got 80,000 plus people there for a week, and that’s probably, I don’t know how that compares to the per capita death rate in the general population, but it sounds pretty low to me.

Speaker 5 06:31
Yeah, I’d have to agree. Is it a whole week that you spend there? Like, how does it work?

Speaker 4 06:37
We actually go, so the actual Burning Man event is a week. We go three or four days earlier with our camp to help build the camp. So we’re there for, well, on Playa for like 11 or 12 days. Yeah.

Speaker 3 06:50
It’s funny, Jared, because you and I are very in sync about most things, but your love of Burning Man and my not wanting to go to Burning Man are probably…

Speaker 4 06:59
Yeah, so think of Burning Man as my jets.

Speaker 5 07:05
Ah, yes, I appreciate that analogy. It makes it so clear.

Speaker 4 07:09
We’re in signal nothing football. Not for me

Speaker 3 07:12
Here’s the thing, you have fun at Burning Man. I don’t have fun watching the Jets. I’m doing it as a penance for something I must have done in a past life. That’s very fair. It’s my dad. My dad infected me with that curse.

Speaker 3 07:27
And whatever. If only he had gone to Burning Man, we could hang out. All right. So I guess let’s get into the case.

Speaker 4 07:37
Yeah, let’s jump into it. It’s a good one. I don’t know anything about it. It’s interesting. I don’t know.

Speaker 3 07:43
I don’t know anything about the case. You know, I stopped saying that. Yes.

Speaker 5 07:46
Refresh our recollections.

Speaker 3 07:49
If you’re just listening for the first time, I, Adam, do not know anything about the case. Kim and Jerry have researched the case, they’re going to tell me the case, and you the case, and I’m going to ask questions as a proxy for you, and I will interrupt my wife, and I will take shit for it when I get back home, but it’ll be fine.

Speaker 3 08:06
Kim, where will we be slacating today? Well,

Speaker 5 08:11
Today we are slaking in Surfers Paradise, a bustling seaside suburb in the city of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

Speaker 3 08:23
Yes. We have a lot of slate caters from Australia. Yes, we do. We love ours.

Speaker 5 08:27
Australians. Renowned for its stunning beaches, glistening golden sand, and world-class surfing conditions, Surfer’s Paradise is also noted for its impressive skyline, showcasing stunning ocean views and a hub for nightlife featuring a host of bars, restaurants, and nightclubs.

Speaker 5 08:52
With a scenic coastline 35 miles along the Pacific Ocean, the Gold Coast situated south of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, is one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations. Why are you looking at me like that?

Speaker 3 09:13
No, I just love how into it you get like you’re magical

Speaker 4 09:18
You’ve got hand things happening. I wanted to record that. It’s so nice. It’s magical.

Speaker 5 09:22
I, it has to be magic. I brought it to life. That’s my job

Speaker 3 09:28
You do a good job. Let us know. Yes. Aye, mate. Yes.

Speaker 4 09:32
That’s my—yeah, I heard it. Yeah, yeah

Speaker 5 09:36
So, 26-year-old Walina Wright, a stunning and spirited young woman. She reminded me a lot of our friend, April, with that striking—she had this sort of striking beauty. Anyway, 26-year-old Walina Wright was a stunning and spirited young woman who was looking forward to her friend Halley’s wedding, which was to take place in Australia’s Gold Coast.

Speaker 3 10:14
Like a destination wedding. Yes. Okay, and where are they from? They are from New Zealand.

Speaker 5 10:18
New Zealand. Okay. Yes. So on July 29, 2014, Rowena would board a flight from Wellington, New Zealand to the Gold Coast City in Australia. So a break from the daily inertia of everyday life and an excuse to take a few days off at her job at Kiwi Bank, she decided to make a true getaway of this excursion.

Speaker 5 10:44
Okay. So aside from her friends’ nuptials, she would stay a little longer and enjoy the many sites Surfer’s Paradise has to offer. She reportedly went skydiving. Oh. And visited the Australian zoo, made famous by the legendary Steve Irwin, who was deeply committed to wildlife and a TV personality on the program, The Crocodile Hunter.

Speaker 3 11:18
And put another shrimp on the barbie. No, he didn’t say that. He said, crikey. Crikey.

Speaker 4 11:24
God, we’re losing all of our Australian listeners. I’m sorry, guys, we love you. We do. By the way, if you had a podcast, you’d be making fun of our stupid American accents. So, you know.

Speaker 5 11:34
As you should.

Speaker 3 11:34
Shit, especially kens from you guys.

Speaker 4 11:36
You guys have real accents, we have dumb accents.

Speaker 5 11:39
We do have not as appealing accents. Except you, Kim.

Speaker 4 11:44
I like yours. I don’t know. I feel like my, my, yeah.

Speaker 3 11:49
Okay. So this girl is there for a wedding, but she’s taking advantage. She’s staying extra days. She’s doing all kinds of fun things.

Speaker 5 11:56
What she also did. She also visited the Q1 building. Have you ever heard of this?

Speaker 3 12:00
No.

Speaker 5 12:01
Okay. So it’s an abbreviation for the Queensland number one. And the SkyPoint, formerly the Q deck, the observation deck is on levels 77 and 78.

Speaker 5 12:19
And the Q1 tower stands at approximately 1060 feet tall and is Australia’s tallest building. And

Speaker 3 12:30
Okay, so it’s short to the observation.

Speaker 5 12:31
Yeah, right, so Arena did the SkyPoint climb, which is an insane adventure, not for the faint of heart, where you literally scale this 1,000-plus feet building.

Speaker 4 12:47
On the outside?

Speaker 5 12:50
Yes. Anybody can do that or just Tom Cruise?

Speaker 4 12:52
Anybody. She did it. It’s described as an external building climb and it lasts about 90 minutes. Ninety minutes. Isn’t that interesting? I will never do it.

Speaker 5 13:06
Ever.

Speaker 4 13:07
So it takes you 90 minutes to go up the side of the building?

Speaker 3 13:09
I mean people climb mountains and stuff, so I guess you climb up a building. Are you harnessed in stuff?

Speaker 5 13:16
Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah

Speaker 3 13:19
It’s a greased pole. Climb. All right. So she’s she’s making. No, she’s yeah, she’s.

Speaker 5 13:25
Having a great time. And all things Kim wouldn’t do. Right. That would go to the zoo. She would go to the zoo. I would go to the zoo. Take her to the zoo, Rocky. Right. So while taking in the sites and living her best tourist life experience, Farina decides she would add more spice to the mix.

Speaker 5 13:46
So she downloaded Tinder and she and a guy named Gable Tasty both swiped right. For those of us that aren’t familiar with Tinder. Tinder is a dating app and you swipe left if you’re not interested. You swipe right if you are.

Speaker 5 14:10
If you both swipe right, you have a match. They matched. They matched. It was August 1st, 2014. And they began to communicate pretty regularly. The texts between the two were flirty and got progressively sexually suggestive.

Speaker 5 14:33
And the pair ultimately made a plan to meet.

Speaker 3 14:37
Oh don’t, you don’t meet up right away, I guess you—

Speaker 5 14:40
You can. I mean, you know, I think a lot of it is just like a lot of back and forth.

Speaker 3 14:43
All right. So you matched their exchanging texts. Their exchanging texts. And how long a period?

Speaker 5 14:57
Irina had noted that her Tinder match resembled a character on the show Supernatural.

Speaker 5 14:58
The Sam Wind.

Speaker 4 14:59
Okay, okay. I see that. I didn’t see that before, but now it’s interesting, right? Yeah. Kinda. Now I’m just seeing Sam and our friend April to go. Thank you for that image.

Speaker 5 15:09
Sorry, let me apologize. Supernatural. Yes.

Speaker 4 15:13
The biggest running show you’ve never heard of. That show has been on television. It’s CW? It’s CW. It’s a great show. It’s been on for…

Speaker 4 15:25
You watch it? Well, Brian loves it, so I watch it with him sometimes.

Speaker 4 15:27
It’s a fun show.

Speaker 4 15:30
Okay. But it’s one of these shows that’s been like… It’s been on for like 15 years. It’s been on for a while. And you don’t know about it. It’s like kind of an under the radar. I never…

Speaker 5 15:35
Never heard of it before this.

Speaker 3 15:37
It’s a fun show. Now you watch it.

Speaker 5 15:39
No.

Speaker 3 15:40
Okay. But she was tickled by the fact that he resembled that character and she happily shared that little detail with her kid’s sister with whom she was very close. Okay.

Speaker 3 15:52
Who is back in New Zealand?

Speaker 5 15:53
Yes, yes, they actually shared an apartment together. So while Reena and Gable would continue the seductive texting back and forth and CCTV would catch the couple on that day, August 7th, 2014 at Cavill Avenue at about 8:45 p.m.

Speaker 5 16:15
Meeting for the first time. You’d see they’re offering a verbal greeting and then a clumsy embrace in front of a surf shop. And they strolled to the Surfer’s Paradise Beer Garden, likely to check out the menu or discuss a plan.

Speaker 5 16:33
We can see timestamp footage of the two of them exiting a few minutes later and later entering a store where they would get a six-pack. The couple decided to head back to Gable’s place at the Avalon apartment building, which offered spacious accommodations and modern conveniences a short distance away.

Speaker 5 17:01
So they, yeah, they made their way to the apartment, settled in and polished off the six-pack and got down to the business of doing what they came here to do and drink some more.

Speaker 6 17:14
Oh, is that a, was that a yeah?

Speaker 3 17:15
Uh, misdirect maybe you thought I was going to think sex and then they just drank. Yes, yes, but also.

Speaker 5 17:22
Sex and, and it would be at this opportunity. Oh yes.

Speaker 3 17:27
A picture of the sex? What are you showing me?

Speaker 5 17:30
This is a picture of them together.

Speaker 3 17:32
Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 17:33
Oh, she seems cool. He seems like the guy from Supernatural that I’ve never seen. These are them. So when was that taken?

Speaker 3 17:42
That night. Like while they’re hanging out.

Speaker 5 17:43
Oh, that’s a selfie though.

Speaker 3 17:49
Yeah, they would take a selfie.

Speaker 5 17:50
Probably back in.

Speaker 4 17:51
His place. Right.

Speaker 5 17:52
And Gable had introduced his homemade concoction of moonshine, his own special recipe of distilled vodka, in which they would both partake. Okay. So at about 12:55 a.m., 5 to 1, August 8th, Gable begins to record.

Speaker 5 18:15
He essentially records his dates in real time. And there is a recording in an upward about three hours of just audio. Would you like to hear some of the dates?

Speaker 3 18:29
Uh, sure.

Speaker 5 18:33
Just audio. He was recording.

Speaker 3 18:36
For posterity’s sake, why, I don’t know.

Speaker 5 18:39
Well, he, he, who knows, it is very unclear.

Speaker 3 18:44
I’ll play some audio.

Speaker 1 18:46
and then like

Speaker 6 18:49
Oh fuck! I haven’t talked to humans anymore! Shit! Humans suck! It’s not even history anymore.

Speaker 7 19:05
Mythology.

Speaker 8 19:07
Where’d they go?

Speaker 7 19:08
Hey, what do I care?

Speaker 6 19:14
I never used to be a believer.

Speaker 7 19:22
But my voice can make you a believer.

Speaker 6 19:27
People saying shit. Don’t, don’t be a dick. Don’t be a dick. Okay, okay, you can be a dick. Like, it’s whatever.

Speaker 9 19:37
I’ll get our…

Speaker 7 19:38
Sorry. What? Sorry.

Speaker 6 19:41
I’m going to vote.

Speaker 9 19:42
Have a look at the window, right?

Speaker 8 19:45
Don’t jump off or anything. No!

Speaker 6 19:47
Thanks for watching!

Speaker 8 19:49
Forecast this morning…

Speaker 6 19:49
Before then, I sent you two, right?

Speaker 5 19:54
You get the idea.

Speaker 4 19:55
She’s, she’s very drunk. Yeah, she’s clearly.

Speaker 5 19:57
A lot of it is drunken and incoherent yammering.

Speaker 3 20:01
They’ve gone from the first day to being together for 20 years.

Speaker 4 20:06
There’s a lot of, you know, if you do listen to this whole thing, they talk a lot about the balcony. They do.

Speaker 5 20:13
It’s almost like oddly fixated on it. Both of them. Both of them.

Speaker 4 20:18
Yeah, she talks about jumping off the balcony. He talks about his beautiful view on the balcony. There’s like a lot of balcony talk.

Speaker 3 20:24
Right, but she’s talking about jumping and he’s talking about looking.

Speaker 4 20:27
Yes, correct. There are different different balcony wavelengths.

Speaker 3 20:32
Yeah. None are from Mars. Women are jumping off balconies.

Speaker 4 20:35
And also he’s recording the whole, like that’s like, if you think, so just take a step back, like regardless of how fucked up she sounds and whatever, he knows he’s recording and she doesn’t. Right.

Speaker 3 20:48
Right. Oh, she doesn’t even know.

Speaker 5 20:51
And he sounds at times like he’s being performative for the recording.

Speaker 3 20:57
Yeah, as if to set an alibi or a, look, I didn’t do anything. She’s fucked up and whatever. Anyway, we’ll find out more about all of this right after this quick break and a word from our sponsors.

Speaker 5 21:11
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Speaker 5 [22:00]
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Speaker 5 [22:21]
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Speaker 1 [22:38]
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sherriff.

Speaker 1 [22:53]
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Dear’s family and friends, and I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 5 [23:13]
And we’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Speaker 3 [23:13]
We’re back. Alright. So we just heard some crazy audio and maybe we’ll play some more on our.

Speaker 4 [23:19]
We will play some more of it. One thing, should we talk a little about Gable here? Do you want to?

Speaker 5 [23:24]
Yeah, absolutely. How old is he? He’s 28. Okay. And he is a local to these parts.

Speaker 3 [23:32]
Yeah, well, lives at the Avalon, the Surfers Cove, or what is Surfers Paradise.

Speaker 4 [23:38]
Yeah. Surfer’s Paradise. He is, you saw, you know, he seems like an attractive fit guy. The thing about him is that he had been in a little bit of a pickle when he was younger. He had been running a fake ID business.

Speaker 5 [23:57]
Yeah, he made $30,000 from that gig.

Speaker 4 [24:02]
Yeah. And like, so it was a pretty big business and this was in high school and then he got caught by the cops. And so…

Speaker 3 [24:09]
Like fake IDs so you can drink? Yeah. All that.

Speaker 4 [24:13]
Okay. For partying. He had been diagnosed more recently with some social anxiety stuff, but after the fake ID incident happened, he got really depressed and he cut off all of his friends from school and he became kind of a loner because he felt like his life had been messed up by what he did and getting caught.

Speaker 4 [27:38]
About pizza.

Speaker 3 [27:41]
Alright, so this guy is a sex…

Speaker 4 [27:44]
He’s kind of obsessed with sex, for sure.

Speaker 3 [27:51]
Thanks, doc…

Speaker 5 [27:52]
Well, he considers himself such.

Speaker 4 [27:54]
Well, and he develops a really serious drinking problem. He starts recording his nights out because he drinks so much that he can’t remember what happened.

Speaker 5 [28:18]
And this way, if something jumps off…

Speaker 3 [28:22]
or, yeah, he’s been recording stuff for ages.

Speaker 5 [28:26]
Recording isn’t a new thing, no.

Speaker 3 [28:34]
That’s his thing. Recording, like in real time. Okay, yeah, but not telling the people.

Speaker 4 [28:40]
It’s almost like he thinks of it like those little cameras that you have in your car.

Speaker 3 [28:49]
So to speak…

Speaker 5 [29:10]
When this whole thing had gone down with him and his trouble with the law at this point…

Speaker 4 [29:27]
Driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.185 in 2011 and in July 2014 he had a blood alcohol level of 0.2 and had been arrested after leading the cops on a high-speed chase.

Speaker 5 [29:43]
Okay, so he’s got some stuff going on. So a judge hearing the case of his situation with the IDs…

Speaker 5 [30:22]
He was described as socially distant and emotionally estranged.

Speaker 3 [30:30]
Swipe right!

Speaker 5 [30:32]
Well, his psych eval did not come up

Speaker 4 [30:41]
Huh, that would change things.

Speaker 5 [30:44]
I mean, just, just have it like right there. Like you have to have it.

Speaker 4 [31:04]
So he’s met up with Marina. They’re both visiting. They’ve got their beers, they’ve gone back to his apartment to drink and have fun.

Speaker 3 [31:16]
Yep, in that order. And he’s got his own vodka moonshine.

Speaker 5 [31:23]
He distilled vodka.

Speaker 4 [31:26]
Yeah. And so, you know, as you can hear from the little bit of the tape we played, she gets really drunk from his vodka.

Speaker 3 [31:37]
Right. Now is he deliberately not drinking as much or he’s just such an alcohol addict, it doesn’t matter?

Speaker 5 [31:44]
Really, it’s really hard to tell.

Speaker 3 [32:16]
I mean, it’s like me dragging your drunk ass all over, right?

Speaker 5 [32:20]
Yeah, sounds great.

Speaker 5 [32:38]
And there were points during the recording where she becomes aggressive. And you can hear her exclaiming, ‘Where’s my phone? Where’s my shit? Where’s my money?’ And he’s kind of heard in the background.

Speaker 5 [32:56]
I don’t know. At times it sounds like he’s a little bit bemused by it.

Speaker 3 [33:12]
But they’ve already had sex. Right? Was that determined? Yes. Okay. So it’s not like, you know, he’s got documenting to do, he’s got some journaling and adding to the numbers.

Speaker 5 [33:31]
Right, she’s been drinking, she’s intoxicated, and it’s just, a lot of it is just yammering.

Speaker 5 [33:46]
She does say, ‘I want to go home.’ Right. ‘I want to go home.’

Speaker 3 [33:47]
What is the idea that she’s too drunk to go home and he’s trying to protect her?

Speaker 4 [33:51]
At one point, he offers to take her home and she doesn’t want to go home at that point.

Speaker 4 [34:03]
So he was nervous about being physically assaulted by her.

Speaker 3 [34:09]
Right. It’s like, you can’t win.

Speaker 3 [34:20]
Do you have any of the aggression on, uh, yeah, you want to take a listen?

Speaker 7 [34:20]
No, no, I’ll do what you want sexually, I’ll be a slave.

Speaker 6 [34:32]
Mmm. Mancista! Rawr!

Speaker 2 [34:37]
Who?

Speaker 7 [34:39]
That’s fking cheesy, fking… This man’s just the f**king…

Speaker 8 [34:46]
There you go! Alright, let’s go. Not it.

Speaker 6 [34:52]
No, seriously, I need a f***ing chair.

Speaker 7 [35:13]
I care.

Speaker 6 [35:14]
I don’t know, it’s true.

Speaker 7 [35:17]
Alright, that’s enough.

Speaker 6 [35:19]
Whoo!

Speaker 7 [35:19]
That is more than enough. You’re welcome. You’re not my kind of girl.

Speaker 6 [35:31]
That’s enough.

Speaker 9 [35:39]
You have to leave.

Speaker 6 [35:40]
Okay.

Speaker 7 [35:44]
It’s okay.

Speaker 6 [35:49]
He knows. He’s a zugger. Let’s go. He’s a zugger. It’s not about how you need. It’s not about her.

Speaker 7 [36:02]
Yeah, it is. You’re f***ing insane.

Speaker 6 [36:05]
That’s not about how you need, that’s not about how you… Get the s*** out now. Baby. F***.

Speaker 7 [36:15]
I thought you were only kidding, but you know…

Speaker 6 [36:18]
What a colour.

Speaker 7 [36:20]
You poo. Go on. Right now. I do need a sample of DNA.

Speaker 3 [36:31]
I need a sample of DNA.

Speaker 7 [36:35]
See, I thought you were kidding, and I’ve taken enough. This is fing bulls. You like it? I’m chucking you off my fing balcony, you goddamn psycho little bh. Who the f*** do you think I am? Yeah, do your moo tie now.

Speaker 2 [37:06]
What? Is it the same? Say it. Say it.

Speaker 6 [37:18]
What? 50 seconds. Yeah. Alright.

Speaker 7 [37:26]
I’m the one who’s injured, you don’t have a goddamn scratch on you.

Speaker 6 [37:33]
Come with me, Adri!

Speaker 7 [37:36]
Share as they want.

Speaker 10 [37:40]
Seriously, what?

Speaker 3 [37:44]
Yeah. It sounds like, I mean, there’s some kind of exertion going on. She’s especially out of breath, but I can’t.

Speaker 4 [37:50]
It seems it seems like from his telling of it that they were like kind of having some sort of like Bondage play that then got out of hand with her. He says she was throwing rocks at him.

Speaker 4 [38:01]
Yeah, there’s like a little Rocks. Uh, and then, I guess she was tied up her hands were tired again. It’s unclear.

Speaker 5 [38:14]
It’s unclear. All of it is unclear. It’s unclear. Yeah, we don’t know why yet.

Speaker 4 [38:18]
Yeah, did you ever see anything that explained where he was asked to explain why he asked her for a DNA sample? Because I looked all over, I’m like, that is a weird ass thing to say. Like, why would you need that?

Speaker 3 [38:29]
Yeah. Anyway, we haven’t even figured out what happened. Well, we haven’t even gotten to what happens to her yet, but we will right after this quick break.

Speaker 9 [38:41]
What would you do if you were framed for murder by a serial killer? Introducing Natural Selection, Scott versus Wild Bill

Speaker 3 [40:09]
Alright. We’re back. Yeah. It sounds like from the tape, she’s getting like weaker and he’s getting angrier.

Speaker 4 [40:28]
We didn’t obviously the whole two hour date because of little snippets of that nonsense. And this is all available.

Speaker 5 [40:34]
Yeah, you could just Google it and it’ll just come up. So what happens with her?

Speaker 4 [40:39]
But just to balcony things interesting, because that is like the eighth or ninth time that Balcony’s mentioned, right?

Speaker 4 [40:52]
So yeah, reading what is his state of mind here, he obviously has his version of it. It sounds to me like he’s frustrated and annoyed. Like it sounds to me like he’s a guy who thought he was going to get to have more sex and now he’s being a little…

Speaker 5 [41:10]
He was trying to coax her at one point earlier in the video. I mean, I don’t know what it’s…

Speaker 3 [41:15]
About this, but he does seem more with it, like he seems more coherent. And she seems like a little out of control.

Speaker 4 [41:29]
But the thing is, you know, like he’s so much physically bigger than her.

Speaker 5 [41:47]
When you hear…

Speaker 4 [41:49]
Oh, what?

Speaker 5 [41:56]
Anyway, when you hear the audio, you realise that there were many opportunities leading up to this point where this should have been ended.

Speaker 4 [42:13]
You can put her in a car. Wait, let’s just tell me what happens. So we’ll play for you what happens because it’s all on tape.

Speaker 3 [42:22]
Oh, my God. OK.

Speaker 4 [44:15]
They think at this point he’s restraining her on the ground in some way.

Speaker 5 [44:18]
Right. There’s even suggestion that he might have been choking her.

Speaker 4 [44:25]
Her breathing is obviously…

Speaker 3 [44:28]
Laboured in some right, but you can also just be very angry and…

Speaker 2 [44:36]
Let’s go.

Speaker 8 [44:40]
Thanks for watching!

Speaker 6 [44:56]
No! Fuck off! Fuck off!

Speaker 7 [45:03]
Who the fuck do you think you are?

Speaker 6 [45:04]
No! Hm? No!

Speaker 8 [45:08]
I’m trying to kill me.

Speaker 7 [45:11]
Why’d you try to hit me with that?

Speaker 6 [45:14]
Lina! Lina!

Speaker 4 [45:19]
So I’m gonna pause here for a second. What he explains he’s doing at this point is that she has become so physically violent that he is- He’s just trying to get her- Get her away from him and that he’s taking her and putting her on the balcony.

Speaker 4 [45:32]
That’s a, seems like a space to just separate her.

Speaker 5 [45:36]
The penalty box. Separate, separate the two, yes, essentially.

Speaker 4 [45:40]
Everyone who listens to this is that her screams do not sound like the screams of someone who’s just being placed on a balcony, but but…

Speaker 5 [45:48]
She’s intoxicated. She could just be highly agitated.

Speaker 3 [45:52]
Yeah, I mean it’s like I don’t want to play like just like devil’s advocate for the sake of it, but it’s like This guy a murderer well, whatever the point is it’s like if she doesn’t want to go out there Then she’s and she’s a tough she’s just yeah, right.

Speaker 3 [46:07]
She could be screaming. No. No. No, I don’t want to go out there

Speaker 4 [46:09]
And she doesn’t know what he’s… She doesn’t know this guy. Right, so…

Speaker 3 [46:12]
Right, if he’s just trying to stick her out there and, what, lock a door or something so she can’t come back in? Yeah, well, I’ll play you, I’ll play, it’s the next… But does it sound good? No. But does it sound good?

Speaker 3 [46:21]
Why is it being recorded?

Speaker 8 [46:25]
Nooooooo…

Speaker 3 [46:53]
I would, but you’ve been a bad girl.

Speaker 4 [47:02]
So that point when you stop hearing her scream at that point, she’s fallen off the balcony.

Speaker 3 [47:08]
Fallen right oh boy ah that’s crazy that line I would but you’ve been a bad girl well that I don’t like that’s right that changes a lot for me yeah cuz I’ve been in fights with a lady it would sound pretty…

Speaker 4 [47:40]
Bad right but but if you know that you’re recording it why would you like he’s even says during the these horrible last moments like he’s like I’m recording this you know this is all being recorded so he said that yeah did I hear that it’s how you if you listen to it a few times I hear okay he’s saying you know this is all being recorded I’ve got this on you know like none of it kind of adds up right

Speaker 3 [48:03]
No, I mean, and this guy’s looking to have sex with lots of women. He’s not a murderer, per se, unless there’s something from his past that we don’t know.

Speaker 3 [48:20]
And he says, I would, but you’ve been a bad girl. And that is like, wait, what? If she wants to go and says, I wanna go, it’s like, fine, fucking go then. But he doesn’t say that. No. And then he drags her to the balcony.

Speaker 3 [48:38]
Right, in an effort to. And then what is the, so she, how high is this? Do you know? 14 stories. Yeah. Jesus Christ. And the balcony, like, can you fall off?

Speaker 4 [48:52]
Of it or… No, it’s a pretty large balcony. You’d have to… I’m saying the railing and all that. You’d have to make an effort to fall.

Speaker 4 [49:08]
One is she decided that she wanted to get off that balcony and away from him and tried to climb down to the next balcony. But it doesn’t really line up with her screaming, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 3 [49:26]
I mean, it feels like she’s trying to wrangle her onto the balcony and the nose or, or her trying to keep that from happening.

Speaker 4 [49:32]
Yeah, but then what happened on the balcony because…

Speaker 3 [49:36]
It’s interesting, the recording got louder to like, so where is this phone that’s recording? It’s on his person? I’m not sure, we couldn’t figure that out because we were saying that.

Speaker 4 [49:43]
That we were saying the same thing. It’s like, it goes in and out and you’re like, wait, what? And what’s happening? Where? But also there’s no scream. So there’s not, but what’s weird is that some writeups on this say that you hear her scream.

Speaker 4 [49:55]
And I’m like, Yes, that’s true. I’m like, I don’t hear any screams.

Speaker 5 [49:59]
You can hear it.

Speaker 3 [50:00]
I didn’t want to play that last part again or not particularly, okay um, so…

Speaker 4 [50:07]
I had to listen to it. No, I know. I’m getting ready for this. I’m like… So hear it very quickly.

Speaker 3 [50:11]
Does he say anything after she’s gone? Like he doesn’t like you figure he’d report. Oh my God, she fell or kind of mutters. Fuck. Yes.

Speaker 4 [50:18]
Then he leaves.

Speaker 5 [50:22]
Yes. He goes out for a stroll, kind of tries to collect himself. What?

Speaker 4 [50:26]
Yes.

Speaker 5 [50:27]
And he notices that there are. He’s got another match on Tinder.

Speaker 3 [50:34]
See you soon.

Speaker 5 [50:35]
He went out, he was trying to collect himself, get his bearings. He noticed that, uh, emergency personnel had been called. So he had seen all the activity surrounding that.

Speaker 5 [50:50]
Well, he went, stopped to have a slice of pizza.

Speaker 4 [50:54]
And do you want to know where he had pizza? And where it is on the list? I think that when we tell you where he had pizza, you’re going to decide he’s definitely guilty.

Speaker 3 [51:03]
Oh, hot or Domino’s? Domino’s. Fuck me.

Speaker 4 [51:09]
Case over so yeah so this guy he does nothing to be of help well no he does calling

Speaker 3 [51:17]
Dad yes we have that looks like you fell for my neighbor’s balcony he records this too

Speaker 7 [51:27]
Hello dad, um, I might have a bit of a situation. See, um, I met up with the girl for a date tonight and, um, she started getting really aggressive.

Speaker 4 [52:53]
So that’s the call to his dad, and his dad eventually comes and picks him up.

Speaker 5 [52:58]
And he goes and turns himself into the police the next morning. Right.

Speaker 4 [53:05]
And they have a law in Australia that was enacted because of a, it was a precedent because of a case a few years earlier where, uh, I’m getting, I’m going to get the details wrong, but essentially a woman was…

Speaker 5 [53:57]
And that he contributed.

Speaker 3 [53:59]
And not well, that’s an extra wrinkle to fuck you, you know, obviously But it’s like it’s interesting like either. He’s a sociopath In that call or he seems the poor with his dad. Yeah

Speaker 5 [54:13]
Well, it’s clear that he’s not. Look, he’s the thing, though, if he well, he was diagnosed on the spectrum. So is that behaviour unusual for somebody on the spectrum? Oh, that’s true. I mean, that’s.

Speaker 3 [54:30]
True. Right. Like as per.

Speaker 5 [54:32]
I’m not saying he’s a great guy, and…

Speaker 3 [54:35]
He doesn’t know her other than tonight. So she’s a stranger, essentially.

Speaker 3 [54:49]
I’m not going anywhere near that. I’m trying to prevent anybody from going to that balcony because

Speaker 4 [54:55]
That’s you don’t want them jumping off the balcony.

Speaker 3 [54:56]
Or falling or anything, you know, a fight on the balcony is not a good place.

Speaker 4 [55:01]
You know, the crazy there’s like for the other besides just the tragedy of her dying is that the people below.

Speaker 3 [55:11]
Landed on somebody? No, they saw her right there.

Speaker 5 [55:14]
Yeah. So the people.

Speaker 4 [55:15]
Right below were like, they saw her feet dangling. This woman, Gabrielle, was- Oh, so it wasn’t like a quick fall. No, because she heard screaming, and she came out, and then the people, two floors below also heard and looked up.

Speaker 4 [55:30]
And so they all saw, they just saw her dangling. They couldn’t, they can’t say whether he was holding her or not, but she was dangling off, and they were telling her, go back up, you can’t.

Speaker 4 [55:44]
And then they all saw her falling.

Speaker 3 [55:49]
There was a chance she could have been trying to climb.

Speaker 4 [55:53]
Yeah, they said.

Speaker 3 [55:54]
Screaming no no no the entire like you’re probably not trying to climb and screaming no at the same time…

Speaker 4 [55:59]
That’s what I think, but maybe she was, because they say that one guy says he saw her try to turn around and lower a leg down, and then she kind of stiffens back up, and then, yeah, that’s all, plus she’s all fucked up, right, of his moonshine.

Speaker 3 [56:17]
Here’s the thing, it wasn’t like thrown off the balcony. It wasn’t dropped off the balcony.

Speaker 4 [56:23]
No, but she was on the wrong side of the balcony railing, for sure.

Speaker 3 [56:27]
But could she put her there? Yes, theoretically, that’s, that’s a tricky maneuver.

Speaker 4 [56:35]
And it’s weird, it’s like, why? Yeah, yeah, why? Like, there’s nothing, like, it’s hard to find motive in this for him to want to have killed her. Like, it’s a bad shitty date, but like, that’s a huge jump to.

Speaker 5 [56:53]
Yeah, he was charged with her murder. The prosecution had, they made the argument that forcing her on the balcony and locking her out there led directly to her death.

Speaker 3 [57:11]
Did you think he locked her on the balcony?

Speaker 5 [57:15]
That she attempting to climb or get away was because of fear of him. And that relates to the precedent that Jerry was just speaking about earlier.

Speaker 4 [57:28]
But if you listen to the recording, it sounds like she recording like she’s physically assaulting him and he’s saying you’ve hurt me, you’re punching me, you’re stop throwing shit at me. But then the next breath, people are like, well, maybe he was just saying that because he knew he was being recorded.

Speaker 5 [58:04]
And that because of that, he should be absolved of responsibility for her death.

Speaker 4 [58:12]
That like he, if he’s not in the location that she’s in, when she dies, he can’t have murdered her.

Speaker 3 [58:18]
All right, well, we’ll get into all that right after this quick break. All right, we’re back. I got to say, yeah, this is a weird one. It’s very weird.

Speaker 4 [58:29]
And then it starts to come out. There’s all these like he, that when they start to investigate him, he’s been kicked out of clubs for harassing women. Um, his neighbours have said they’ve heard similar screams of a woman on the balcony.

Speaker 4 [58:42]
He’s, he’s posted on these bodybuilding forums about having fun sex encounters with women on his balcony. So like the balcony is like kind of a,

Speaker 5 [58:53]
Yeah, he should not have a balcony.

Speaker 3 [58:56]
I’m just saying, if you live on the 14th floor, take away, take away is.

Speaker 4 [59:00]
He should not have a dog.

Speaker 3 [59:02]
Take away.

Speaker 5 [59:03]
If he was a little boy, you’d be like, you are not responsible.

Speaker 4 [59:07]
And then, you know, look, this has come up in a million cases before, but the whole like, he didn’t act like you’re supposed to act because he didn’t, you know, he didn’t call emergency services. He went for a walk.

Speaker 4 [59:16]
He called his lawyer. He got pizza, Domino’s pizza, then he called his dad. You know, so like… You’re just saying poor judgment all night long. All night. But yeah, so, you know, I mean, look, a good, like, yeah, he doesn’t behave in the way that people want him to, to not seem like he’s guilty.

Speaker 3 [59:39]
Fucking you got an out you let’s just take it like you’re dealing with an out of control drunk woman I know I’ll put her on the 14th floor balcony. That’s a safe space.

Speaker 5 [59:50]
It’s interesting that you say that, because he did an appearance on Australia’s… Was it Australia’s 60 Minutes? Okay. And he was interviewed, and he was confronted with all these things, and his thing was really…

Speaker 5 [01:00:07]
He just wanted… She was being crazy, and he just wanted to separate them. So, on October 20th, 2016, Gable was found not guilty… Oh! Yeah. Mm -hmm. On both… This surprised me. On both the murder and manslaughter charges.

Speaker 5 [01:00:29]
The jury concluded that his actions were a result of the situation, and they felt that it did not meet the legal definition of murder or manslaughter.

Speaker 3 [01:00:41]
I got to say, I think I’m with it. I think I’m with them. I, I’m hearing a lot of bad choices, but I’m not hearing murder or even manslaughter, which is like the, some kind of intent. Like you’ve done something like it again, if he hung her off the balcony, if you grabbed her by the wrists and hung her outside the balcony, like fucking sugar night and vanilla ice or whatever.

Speaker 3 [01:01:09]
Like you did that and then she fell. Or Michael Jackson holding his baby over the balcony and the baby falls. That’s fucking manslaughter.

Speaker 5 [01:01:16]
I think the thing too, though, and the thing that I don’t disagree, I think that given the evidence that was presented, it’s really hard to make a determination. But what I will say is, I still can’t quite reconcile the fact that he knew he was recording it.

Speaker 5 [01:01:37]
And the interesting thing about when you’re actively recording, you have complete control over the narrative. You have to tell her that he was recording.

Speaker 4 [01:01:48]
At the very end, moments before she went off the balcony.

Speaker 5 [01:01:52]
But I mean, even though you could be saying things, but doing something completely different, you could be.

Speaker 3 [01:01:57]
Now the other thing is if the phone is on him and he locks her on a balcony and closes a door of some sort or whatever, I don’t know, what was the balcony? Like, was there like doors or glass doors? Like a sliding door or something?

Speaker 3 [01:02:07]
It’s sliding, yeah. Okay, like that will cut off the sound significantly so you won’t hear her as much. Yeah. So there is that. Yes.

Speaker 3 [01:02:25]
And then she’s like, fuck this, I’m getting out of here and goes over the edge. You could.

Speaker 4 [01:02:43]
Yeah, but you could also say then why wasn’t she just banging on the door saying let me in, let me in you asshole, right, like why is she going the most dangerous way versus.

Speaker 3 [01:02:53]
Because he said he wasn’t gonna let her in. I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I’m surprised you didn’t take something from the balcony and smash the door. Sure.

Speaker 4 [01:03:02]
I would also get you back in. Yeah.

Speaker 3 [01:03:05]
Or get you thrown off.

Speaker 4 [01:03:05]
Which is why those things, the fact that she didn’t break the door, bang on the door is why a lot of people have the theory that he put her into a precarious position on the balcony. Right.

Speaker 3 [01:03:20]
Well, when you say precarious, like, hover over the end.

Speaker 4 [01:03:22]
I’m over the edge or put her, like, draped her over the, like, some position that was not safe. Right.

Speaker 3 [01:03:38]
Oh, that’s right, that’s right. And what did the dad do that he’d show up and… Yeah, his dad. Yeah, pick him up. Wow, what a crazy case. Yeah. All right, we gotta… should we wrap this up? Can we take one?

Speaker 3 [01:03:50]
So…

Speaker 5 [01:03:51]
Yeah, what’s the takeaway?

Speaker 4 [01:03:53]
For you.

Speaker 3 [01:03:53]
No balconies for Gable. Seven gables, no balconies. Oof. It’s a literary joke, honey.

Speaker 4 [01:04:01]
I think the takeaway is if you’re in a situation with someone who’s acting crazy because they’re drunk or out of their mind for some reason, put them somewhere where they can’t get accidentally harmed if you can, like not a balcony, not a bathroom, like a bedroom or a hallway.

Speaker 3 [01:04:20]
I’m trying to think of the room in my house that’s the safe room for putting crazy wives.

Speaker 5 [01:05:08]
Right. Oh, you know what? Let me piggyback right on that for a second. Yeah, that’s interrupt. So you drink the beer that you bought at the place at the deli or whatever. Right. Then the guy says, hey, I made my own alcohol that you have no idea how strong it is, how fucked up it is, what’s in it.

Speaker 3 [01:05:27]
Just drink this. That’s that’s not a good thing. Don’t don’t drink the homemade. I don’t know what the fuck this is. Juice. Right. Don’t drink.

Speaker 4 [01:05:39]
Is homemade juice, right? That’s a good tip.

Speaker 5 [01:05:43]
I mean, yeah, you know, I think that it’s important, especially when you’re meeting somebody new. It’s your very first time meeting and you want to get laid. Make sure you have the necessary protection to get laid properly.

Speaker 5 [01:05:58]
But then get the fuck out when you’re done. Just no cuddling.

Speaker 4 [01:06:02]
Oh, you’re a dude. I love it. No, but I’m just saying. Love it.

Speaker 5 [01:06:06]
You know, it’s like, get the fuck out when you’re done and maintain your wits about you. It is because you’re vulnerable. We’re all vulnerable when we’re intoxicated. And it was clear that he, and this is regardless of his guilt or innocence or whatever, he was not a safe person.

Speaker 5 [01:06:26]
No.

Speaker 4 [01:06:27]
He was a little toasty.

Speaker 3 [01:06:31]
Yes! You scullied it.

Speaker 5 [01:06:37]
But, you know, again, I mean, and this devastated her poor sister. Yeah, of course. If there is a cautionary tale, it really just goes to taking care of yourself and preserving yourself and keeping your sense and your wits about you.

Speaker 3 [01:06:53]
Well, I will say, it sounded like, from the little bit I heard, it sounded like she thought she was in control until she wasn’t, you know?

Speaker 5 [01:07:02]
She was just to say, listening to the audio, there was never any point where I thought, yep, she’s in control.

Speaker 4 [01:07:09]
No, she thought she was, but she wasn’t.

Speaker 5 [01:07:12]
That’s what intoxication does. That’s why people get behind the wheel of a car and go I can drive.

Speaker 3 [01:07:16]
That’s what I’m saying in your mind. You’re in control to the rest of the world. You’re not But it’s like there’s a way to de-escalate There’s a way to de-escalate even if you had to drag her out of the place.

Speaker 4 [01:07:28]
If any time you hear him talk, he will tell you he, the word he used is de-escalate. That’s what he thought he was doing.

Speaker 3 [01:07:35]
Mm -hmm. I’m putting around the balcony. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 5 [01:07:38]
All right, well. But anyway, I wanna thank our listener, Julia, for recommending and suggesting this case. I hope you found it interesting and thank you.

Speaker 4 [01:07:49]
Julia, this was an awesome case. Thank you for the suggestion.

Speaker 3 [01:07:52]
Yeah, this was a tricky one. All right, thank you so much. Leave us five-star reviews if you want to. Subscribe, help support the…

Speaker 4 [01:08:02]
If you’re on Apple, thank you. If you’re on Spotify, listening to us, that’s awesome. You can do the polls on Spotify. Spotify has been a huge supporter of the show, so we’re very happy about that and encourage everyone to check out our polls over on Spotify.

Speaker 3 [01:08:17]
Yeah, check out our polls. You son of a bitch. All right. I’m not. We’re out of here. Adams polls. Thank you.

Speaker 1 [01:08:32]
In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dear, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I’m Lucy Sheriff.

Speaker 1 [01:08:47]
Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with Dear’s family and friends, and I’ve discovered that everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where’s Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.